Slate Magazine has an interesting photographic item featuring eight pictures of library buildings, with a bit of thoughtful discussion about the architecture of library buildings in the digital age. I … Read more Library architecture in Slate Magazine
The new issue of Information for Social Change is on the web. This issue comes back to the topic of social exclusion, which has been a major direction for ISC … Read more Information for Social Change – issue 26
In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without … Read more Laser printer privacy concern
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is a group founded in November, 2001 that works to protect (and restore) civil rights and liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. They … Read more People’s Campaign for the Constitution
Message from Terry Epperson, chair of PLG’s Braverman Prize committee Hello ‚Äì We‚Äôre pleased to announce the fifth annual Miriam Braverman prize, sponsored by the Progressive Librarians Guild, for the … Read more Miriam Braverman Prize – essay contest
David Bade is a cataloger at the University of Chicago who has written books and articles on issues in bibliographic control and other topics. Lately, he’s has gained some attention … Read more Interview with David Bade
The current issue of LRC: Literary Review of Canada has a light essay by an acquaintance of Marshall McLuhan, discussing what the man was like and assessing his influence: In … Read more Bob Rodgers remembers Marshall McLuhan
We’re presently awash in talk about a great paradigm shift that puts the user at the center of our planning for services. This is sometimes referred to simply as user-centered … Read more Dueling Paradigm Shifts
Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience is an important new book by James B. Rule, who also wrote an influential … Read more Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience
The New York Times Book Review published a review last week of Lee Siegel’s Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. The reviewer, John Lanchester, … Read more Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
RAINBOW PROJECT ANNOUNCES FIRST ANNUAL GLBTQ BOOK LIST FOR YOUTH Philadelphia, PA, January 2008 Co-sponsored by the American Library Association‚Äôs Social Responsibility Round Table and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and … Read more Rainbow Project – GLBTQ book list for youth
In its seventh year now, the Amelia Bloomer List is a recommended reading list of feminist books for girls, that is, books for girls (ranging from beginning readers to teens) … Read more 2008 Amelia Bloomer List
I have not seen this and make no endorsement: Arthur and Esther, A Dark Comedy about Libraries, Lakes, and Lost Love…
Diedre Conkling has created a wiki page for keeping a record of ALA Council actions. It presently has the actions taken at Midwinter, as well as the full text of … Read more ALA Council Actions at Midwinter
The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralised access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to … Read more Habermas on Web 2.0
Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems Author: David Bade Price: $22.00 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-6-7 Printed on acid-free paper The three papers in this volume were written in the wake of … Read more David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship
ALA Council passed a resolution on the crisis in Kenya, focusing on the issue of press freedoms. The resolution is below. One thing that helped sway Council to pass the … Read more Kenya
Celeste West was a pioneering radical librarian whose works still inspire alternative minded librarians, especially anarchist librarians, today. She was one of the founders of the Bay Area Reference Center, … Read more Celeste West passes on
This is rather unbelievable. Two shipping containers of records from the Baath Party of Iraq – about seven million pages – are being transferred to the Hoover Institution at Stanford … Read more Hoover Institution to Accession Looted Documents
Report on ALA Council to SRRT, Midwinter 2008, Philadelphia Although we did not get everything we advocated, SRRT‚Äôs initiatives and interventions in the work of ALA Council went quite well … Read more Al Kagan’s Council Report